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RCO-S, responsible for three locations
supporting nearly 8,000 Soldiers, Air-
men, Sailors, Marines and civilians,
consisted of me, my noncommissioned
o cer in charge, a civilian administra-
tive contracting o cer (ACO) and three
quality assurance representatives (QARs).
e three locations were reachable only
by helicopter and required signi cant
planning and coordination to schedule
visits. To support the contingency contract
administration services mission, I and one
civilian held ACO warrants that gave us
authority to direct the LOGCAP contrac-
tor. All RCO-S personnel were located at
Kandahar Air eld, save one QAR who
lived at one of our outlying bases.
RCO-S has been supporting contract-
ing operations in southern Afghanistan
for more than a decade, and it has seen
its personnel turn over every six to 12
months. My assessment of its operation
when I arrived was over whelmingly posi-
tive, but one of my intentions was to leave
it better than I found it. Our day-to-day
challenge was to apply the commander's
intent to accomplish our contracting mis-
sion. Managing a life-support contract
ser ving so many people across such a
large footprint is complex, to say the least.
Doing so with simple guidance was fun-
damental to our success.
OVERSIGHT LEFT OF BANG
is a xiom means, essentially, to identify
and mitigate issues or risks before they
became problems, i.e., be proactive versus
reactive. We accomplished this through
relentless oversight of the contractor.
e performance work statement (PWS)
for the LOGCAP contract in the south
contained 75 "lines," or services to be
performed. For example, one line was
waste management. e contractor was
expected to execute that ser vice in a
particular way, on a particular schedule,
using particular manuals and instruc-
tions, all detailed in the PWS. is
"parent" service encompassed "child"
ser vices: emptying dumpsters, ser vicing
portable toilets, operating a land ll, etc.
Each ser vice was assigned a risk rating of
high, medium or low. (See Figure 1.)
e ser vices with a "high" risk rating
were deemed to have the potential to hurt
the war ghter's readiness or even cause
actual harm if not executed correctly. For
example, food service operations was a
high-risk ser vice. Food service must be
done correctly, without fail, guaranteeing
that the contractor provided patrons with
the nutrition they needed, ser ved food
properly and maintained a prescribed
degree of cleanliness. On the opposite
end of the spectrum, morale, welfare and
recreation (MWR) ser vices were assigned
a low risk. e war ghter's readiness was
unlikely to su er if an MWR building
did not fully function.
To ensure that the contractor upheld its
end of the contract and avoided ser vice
disruptions, my QARs conducted peri-
odic audits of performance lines. An
audit was as simple as an on-the-spot
observation or as detailed as reviewing
the contractor's execution of a task. My
QARs conducted an average of more
than 100 audits each month on most
PWS lines for the LOGCAP task order,
a signi cant increase compared with the
practices of previous sta s. Our goal was
to audit all high- and medium-risk ser-
vices each month, including all parent
and child services. at schedule gave my
team frequent opportunities to witness
contractor performance and to identify
opportunities to mitigate perceived or
possible issues.
On several occasions, particularly in
dining facilities, my QARs and I made
on-the-spot corrections relating to
cleanliness, waste management and food
preparation. For instance, we noticed
that one of the dining facilities was tem-
porarily storing food waste immediately
outside the dining facility, violating a reg-
ulation that trash was to be kept at least
250 feet from the building at all times.
Food waste brings insects, rats and other
vermin, all unacceptable visitors in a din-
ing facility. A quick discussion with the
dining facility manager resolved the issue,
which was minor but could have grown
into a bigger problem if not addressed.
My o ce was allotted only three QARs,
so we relied heavily on contracting o -
cer's representatives (CORs) to perform
sur veillance of the contractor. QARs
are specially trained on how to read and
interpret a PWS and are very familiar
with the associated technical manuals
the contractor is legally bound to follow.
A QAR is also well-versed in the basics
of contracting---what is expected of the
contractor as well as the government. My
QARs kept the pulse of the contractor
with regard to performance across the
breadth of the LOGCAP contract, but I
had only three of them, and they couldn't
be everywhere, all the time. By contrast,
33 CORs were available, on average,
throughout our three locations; however,
executing their COR duties was often
secondary to their primary job.
e CORs monitored all performance
lines and recorded their ndings monthly
in the COR Tool (CORT). CORT is an
online database for collecting the numer-
ous COR reports submitted each month,
simple digital les answering pertinent
questions on contractor performance.
is database is accessible to the CORs
and all contracting o cers assigned to a
given contract. A monthly requirement
for the ACOs at RCO-S was to review
these forms to ensure their validity and
accuracy and accept them into CORT.
ASC.ARMY.MIL 223
CONTRACTING